Travelers ages 18 to 28 who are establishing their travel habits and open to new ideas.

Typefaces

Ideal Sans
Nexus Mix
Skitch
Strangelove

Key Words

Discovery
Communication
Perspective
Diversity
Culture

Advisors

Phil Hamlett
David Hake
Ariel Gray

Same Moon, Thesis Project

Objective Make travel more meaningful by creating cross cultural connections between travelers and locals at popular tourist destinations.

Travel has the potential to be a meaningful, eye-opening, and even educational experience. And yet so often it ends up being a series of superficial photo-ops, with tourists focused on taking “bragging rights” photos to post online. Even if travelers are interested in getting to know the local culture and local people, it can be difficult to find a way to connect with them in the limited time travelers have.

Concept Same Moon fosters greater global understanding and mutual respect by making it easier for travelers to learn about the culture they are visiting and connect with locals. Two main initiatives do this—World Chats, a series of casual meet ups that provide a fun, structured evening of conversation for travelers and locals to get to know each other, and Exploring Stories, a series of interactive cultural guidebooks that share different perspectives on famous landmarks.

Visuals Same Moon is a global brand that creates connections between different cultures. A simple, elegant logo with different quote marks communicates the idea of different voices in conversation. A bright color scheme of blues, green, yellow, orange and gray is open and friendly without being overly bold or intense. The main typeface is the humanist sans serif Ideal Sans, and typographic accents are in the serif Nexus Mix and the rougher sans serifs Skitch and Strangelove.

Visually, Same Moon uses patterns from textiles and cultural handicrafts, portraits of diverse people from around the world, and landscapes or buildings featuring rich, detailed patterns. The main graphic elements are circles, a 13-degree angle used to layer patterns and other images next to one another, and the word “hello” written in many different languages.

The digital aesthetic is flat, with simple icons. A few subtle details increase the visual appeal of the flat design including very slight embossing on map pins, and gradients on buttons.